Marvel at Your Own Expense
by Evil Lemon Tree
Summary: Traditionally, small shops with creepy-looking owners have more to them than meets the eye. Meet Amy Reus, the girl who is about to find out the truth in these tales. A modern-girl-in-ME fic, with a bit of a difference.
1. The Number One Rule of Fantasy Fiction

Some of you remember the Mary-Sue I wrote before, which went by the name of "Alternate Reality Bites". Well, I scrapped that (for obvious reasons) and have embarked on a new experiment. Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, or anything else written by J.R.R. Tolkien. They belong, funnily enough, to one J.R.R. Tolkien. I also do not own the name Amy Reus. Nor does Tolkien (as far as I know). That belongs to Riona, and is being used with her permission. The first person to figure out the name gets a Vampire Cookie! (Riona, Darkflare and anyone else who already know, you don't get squat if you guess). And now it is time for our feature presentation...

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Perhaps it wasn't such a good idea for Amy to go into a shop that hadn't been there the day before. After all, rather a lot of fantasy stories feature rooms or shops that seem to magically appear out of nowhere, be it Harry Potter, Discworld, or The Matrix. And when people go into such rooms, bad things tend to come of it.

It just looked so _harmless, that was all._

It was only a little shop, squeezed between a small supermarket and a café on the high street. It wasn't particularly remarkable in appearance - in fact, it looked distinctly shabby. Its wooden door-frame was rather weather-worn, the door-knob had fallen off, and there were cracks in the windows. Above the door, a faded green sign read, in spidery yellow writing, "Marvel's Memorabilia".

The window display was a little more impressive. It featured three large movie posters (one of Star Wars, one of The Matrix and one of James Bond: Goldeneye), a miniature of the Starship Enterprise, a replica of the Elvish swords from Lord of the Rings, a "working" light sabre, and a Sherlock Holmes-style hat on a dummy head.

Amy was innocently wandering down the high street when this little shop caught her eye. She had always been one to follow cult films, and collected things related to them. Her room was papered with Star Wars and Matrix posters, and she had official Matrix sunglasses and a replica of the One Ring, which she would sometimes stroke and address as "My Precioussssss" to scare her friends. Something about this place intrigued her, so she stared into the window for a few moments and walked in.

Inside, there were shelves stacked with objects bearing the label "Limited Edition!" (number of exclamation marks may vary); bins filled with rolled up posters; replica swords and guns on hooks; bookshelves bursting with film guides, sequels, rare parts of a series (_'the Unfinished Tales!'_ thought Amy, longingly), and literary comment; and several rails of carefully replicated costumes.

"This place didn't look so big from the outside," said Amy to no-one in particular, and jumped when the creepy-looking man behind the counter chuckled.

Having no money on her at that moment in time, she decided to just browse for the time being. She could always come back later, if she found something she really wanted. After all, this shop wasn't going anywhere. She spent some considerable amount of time hovering around the bookshelves. The limited edition items looked rather expensive, and she couldn't find any posters she didn't already have. Then, simply because a girl has to, she went over to the clothes rails.

They held an astonishing array of costumes. There were Matrix-style trench coats and catsuits, Trekkie uniforms, quite a few Princess Leia and Queen Amidala dresses, and strange-looking costumes Amy didn't recognise. She was most surprised with the Lord of the Rings ones, though. It seemed they had everything. She spotted Hobbit suits and dresses, Gondorian armour, Rohirrim armour, and Frodo's mithril coat. She was particularly taken with one flowing purple velvet dress, which she recognised from The Two Towers. One of the Elves taking the ship to the Grey Havens had been wearing it, possibly even Arwen. She fumbled for the price tag, then dropped it disappointedly. One hundred and sixty-eight pounds! She would never be able to afford that!

She continued to gaze at it, passing her hands over the material. The temptation was simply too strong. She unhooked the coathanger from its railing and addressed the creepy-looking man at the counter.

"Excuse me?"

The man was leafing through a magazine and did not reply. The top of his greasy bald head glinted in the half-light.

"Excuse me!" Amy said, raising her voice slightly.

Still no reply.

"Dude!" Amy almost shouted, going over to the counter.

The man finally looked up, scowling. "Can I help you, Miss?" he asked, sounding as if he would rather take a pneumatic drill to his sparse teeth.

"Could I try this on, please?"

"Why, certainly," the man replied. He pointed a grimy, yellow finger towards a corner of the shop. "Changing room's over there." He looked at the dress in her hand, and the corners of his mouth rose into a skeletal gap-toothed grin. "Enjoy."

"Tosser," muttered Amy, as she closed the ragged curtain that covered the entrance to the changing room.

She was surprised to find that the dress fitted perfectly, clinging to her slender form in all the right places. She looked in the mirror. It kind of suited her, she thought, untying her wavy black hair from its ponytail. The colour of the material worked well with the grey of her eyes, and didn't make her look too pale. Her school teachers often said that, because of her milky complexion and angular face, she looked like she'd just crawled out of her grave.

Amy closed her eyes for a moment. If she thought hard enough, she could almost imagine that she was inside the story of Lord of the Rings. It was even easier now she was wearing the right clothes. Wouldn't it be cool to be a character from a book? She would love to be one of the Riders of Rohan, or a kickarse shieldmaiden like Eowyn. Wouldn't that just be awesome?

With a sigh, Amy opened her eyes to look in the mirror one more time. Only, there was one slight problem. The mirror wasn't there any more...


	2. Through the Looking Glass

DISCLAIMER: Despite my many attempts to prove to the nice law-man that I was Tolkien in my past life, I do not own Lord of the Rings, nor any of the characters therein.

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In the place where the mirror had been a moment before, there was now what seemed like an infinite number of trees. The changing room around Amy was shimmering and humming in the style of a really bad science fiction movie. Amy shut her eyes tightly in case she was seeing things. When she re-opened them, the changing room had disappeared altogether.

Now _that_ was something that didn't happen every day.

As the novelty of her surroundings wore off, Amy realised that she was actually quite uncomfortable. Her feet were bare (she had taken her trainers off while she was trying on the dress), and she was standing on a carpet of leaves, stones, and a damp squishy substance which she sincerely hoped was mud. A chill wind brushed over the expanse of skin left bare by the plunging neckline of the dress, making her shiver. The sky was dark, and a lone owl hooted stereotypically. By now it was plain that Amy was lost in the worst possible way, without ever having set out to begin with.

Something long, wispy and black streaked across Amy's line of vision. She jumped and her breath caught in her throat. Then she realised that it was just a lock of her hair being blown around in the wind, and tucked it behind her ear, which had suddenly and inexplicably grown a point to it.

Amidst the mass of chaos, confusion and questions clamouring for attention in Amy's mind, a lone possibility asserted its presence. Could it be...? But no, that was impossible. Though, come to think of it, it defied all logic that she was even there in the first place.

For the first time since she had arrived wherever she was, Amy spoke.

"What the hell?"

_Let's try and make sense of this,_ said a voice in her mind. _From a changing room in a shop, you have randomly materialised at a random point in a random forest. You are lost and cold. There may or may not be wild animals in the vicinity. There is no immediately obvious way out, and no-one you can ask for directions. You are, in short, in a bit of a pickle._

"So what should I do?"

Well, there are about three options. You could stand around doing nothing and looking stupid, rather like you are now, and possibly get eaten by wild animals. Or you could make like the dude in that lit book you read and make yourself a bed under a pile of leaves. Alternatively, you could go over to that person-shaped shadow holding a torch, and see if you get anywhere.

"What do I tell them?"

_Don't ask me,_ said the voice in her head, _I'm just a voice in your head. I wouldn't let them catch you talking to yourself, mind._

"Can't hurt, I suppose," said Amy under her breath, and she made her way towards the glimmer of light in the distance.

To her immense relief (and, it must be said, a slight twinge of disappointment), the glimmer of light emanated from the flaming torch of a tall, not particularly sinister-looking man with long blonde hair and pointy ears. His unobtrusive appearance gave Amy the courage to speak. Fortunately, she didn't have to.

"_Lle anta amin tu_?" asked the man, smiling kindly.

Amy was too surprised to give any kind of proper reply, so she just blinked and said "Um." Then, as the English tend to do when faced with someone who doesn't speak their language, she replied, speaking slowly and enunciating her words: "Can  You  TelL  Me  WheRe  I AM?  I  ThinK  I'M  LosT."

The pointy-eared man gave her a strange look. Someone else appeared behind him, and the two strangers had a whispered conversation. Eventually they turned back to her, and the other man said, in a thick accent Amy couldn't distinguish, "Follow, please."

Amy considered the possible outcomes of this proposal for a moment. Back in London, where she had been residing up until about half an hour ago, she would not have followed. In fact, she would have run hard and fast in the opposite direction. But now she was no longer in London, and two strange men could be her only hope of survival.

So with a sigh she set off, walking close behind them.

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A/N: Anyone who can tell me who the "dude in the lit book" is gets a Vampire Cookie. Darkflare, I already told you so you don't count.


End file.
